Jürgen had always insisted he didn’t remember anything about the morning his family died. He had been lying to me, or at least avoiding a painful truth.
“You were eating breakfast when the bomb hit your house?” I asked gently.
Jürgen suddenly sat up, as if shaking off the memory.
“My point is that scenario I just described to you would seem like a fanciful nightmare to most people, but it’s almost within reach.”
“We just have to keep playing the game,” I said. “Remember? Listen for the music. Ignore the dissonant notes?”
“So I build these bombs and let someone else care about where they land?”
“That’s what you have to do.”
“When I’m refining the design of a booster or I’m tinkering with the engineers or I’m planning a test launch, I don’t think about that theoretical family eating their breakfast. Sometimes I even manage to forget that the sum of all the moving parts is a weapon. But as soon as the work stops, that family is all I can think about.”
I looked to Gisela. She was kicking her legs impatiently, craning her neck to look behind her, eager to continue the journey through the park.
“We both know you don’t have a choice. The cost of anything but perfect compliance would simply be too high.”
He slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, planting a gentle kiss above my ear.
“I’m just following orders. I’m doing what I have to do to stay alive. To keep my family safe,” he murmured.
“Exactly,” I said.
“That’s what I tell myself a hundred times a day, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder if that theoretical family eating their breakfast would be satisfied by those excuses. Should we really prioritize the safety of our family over the safety of theirs, Sofie? And does the equation change if, one day in the not-too-distant future, we’re prioritizing the safety of our family over hundreds or thousands of families who might find themselves the target of one of my rockets?”
I turned to stare at him. Our faces were so close I could feel his shaky breath against my lips.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, stricken.
“I don’t know what the answers are either,” he whispered back. “But we have a moral obligation to ask ourselves these questions.”
And it was clear, from the torment in his eyes, he’d been confronting that truth for some time.
Lydia and Karl invited us to join them for dinner the evening before Karl and Jürgen were to return to Peenemünde. While the staff prepared the meal, the nannies supervised the children as they played in a paddling pool in the gardens. Lydia, heavily pregnant with another set of twins, looked exhausted but smiled wearily as she handed us each a glass of champagne.
“I have some excellent news for you both,” Karl announced. “I know that Georg is not due to go until his birthday, but I was speaking with Hans’s supervising captain and he agreed to admit Georg to the Jungvolk early. Congratulations.”
The Jungvolk—the junior division of the Hitler Youth. I was always going to have to cross this bridge when Georg turned ten—I just thought I had a few more months to come to terms with it.
“The Führer needs young warriors like Georg,” Karl said. He looked between the three of us, a glint of determination in his eyes. Just as Jürgen had changed over those past few years, Karl had changed too—he’d become a much harder man, much less inclined to flash his charming smile. “The sooner we get him started, the better—and the early entry reflects just how much the Party values your work, Jürgen.”
“Thank you,” I heard my husband say. Watching the convincing job he was doing of expressing delight at this development, I understood why he was so tired all of the time.
“On that note,” Karl continued, “my friend, there is something I’ve been meaning to speak to you about…” His charming smile made a brief reappearance. “You’re the most senior staff member at Peenemünde who isn’t a member of the Party. I know that’s just an oversight, but don’t you think it’s time we rectified it?”
This was a test of loyalty, just like the special Jungvolk arrangement, and an explicit threat was no longer required. We all understood exactly what the stakes were.
By the time Jürgen returned to Peenemünde the next day, we were paid-up members of the Nazi party, just waiting for our membership numbers to arrive in the post.